And it hadn’t helped that Benjamin had seen him looking longingly at the advert and said, without even thinking, of course you’re going to have a monster garage; no son of mine is going without. They’d had a furious argument outside about it when he’d gone for a cigarette – which by the way also cost a fortune they couldn’t afford – especially when he’d said, stubbornly, that he would get the fucking garage for his son and she could see by the glint in his eye not to argue, which just made her worry and panic even more because she hated to think what lengths he might go to to get it.

And every time Louis had mentioned hopefully about the monster garage and asked leading questions about whether Santa would bring him one on his sleigh or whether it would be too heavy and perhaps he would send some real monsters to carry it, or maybe a special dinosaur, she had hummed non-committally, and prayed for his little four-year-old head to latch on to something else.

So far, it hadn’t. She hated Christmas.

‘Well,’ said Doti, ‘when I went to empty Santa’s letter box, he did say that he had heard that there was a particularly well-behaved boy in N17, so I think he’ll probably try his hardest. And now we must be heading back to the depot.’

Doti and Maya departed together, chatting head to head like a couple of teenagers.

Pearl let Louis have a mince pie. Then she ate two more herself, crossly.

Kelly-Lee had let Austin sleep until closing time – he was sweet, it wasn’t like he was a tramp or anything, although he did appear to be wearing odd socks, but perhaps that was some of that fabled charming English eccentricity she’d heard so much about. But finally it was seven o’clock, pitch dark outside, Hussein and Flavia had already gone and it was time to shut up shop.

‘C’mon, Hugh Grant,’ she said gently. He looked nice asleep; he didn’t snore or dribble or fart, like that fat little TV producer she’d dated in the fall, who’d come round, eat all her food and then try and get in her pants – she wasn’t that dumb, plus she’d felt his little dick prodding up against her thigh when they’d been making out, and frankly she’d lost interest pretty sharply after that. It didn’t stop him talking almost constantly about how many beautiful actresses hit on him every time he stepped out of his condo, and dangling hints about her maybe working in the studio one day. She sighed. She bet this guy wouldn’t do that. Kelly-Lee put on her perkiest smile.

‘Hello, hello?’

Austin blinked. He felt awful. All he wanted to do was crawl under his duvet and sleep for a day and a half. For a second he couldn’t figure out where he was. He pulled out his phone; the little red BlackBerry light was blinking at him ferociously. He had nine new emails and six new voicemails. The first was from the bank head in London.

‘I don’t know what you’ve done to the Yanks,’ it started. ‘Maybe they like staff with hair like an unmade bed. Anyway, they want to make you an offer. Get in touch.’

The next two were from his PA, Janet, insisting he call her as soon as possible. And there was one from Merv, saying how much they were looking forward to having him aboard …

Austin clutched the side of the sofa. This was going very fast. Much too fast. Half of him was excited by the rush of being in demand; half of him was petrified.

‘Good news?’ said Kelly-Lee, watching him stare at the BlackBerry screen in consternation and run his fingers through his lovely thick hair, all tufted up like a small boy’s. Austin blinked several times.

‘I … I’ve just been offered a job. I think.’

Kelly-Lee’s eyebrows went even higher.

‘Boy, that’s great! Congratulations! That means we’ll be seeing you again!’

‘Yes, well … wow. I suppose.’

‘That’s brilliant.’

Kelly-Lee selected the largest of the day’s leftover cupcakes – an enormous red velvet – and swiftly put it in a little box, which she tied up expertly with bright bows.

‘Here you are,’ she said. ‘Congratulations. And welcome to New York.’

‘I thought New Yorkers were supposed to be unfriendly,’ said Austin.

‘Well, you’re about to discover that just ain’t so,’ said Kelly-Lee.

Austin shrugged on his heavy greatcoat and long scarf.

‘Well, goodbye,’ he said.

‘See you again soon,’ said Kelly-Lee, and flashed him her enormous smile.

Outside, the snow was horizontal and blowing into his face. He hurried along looking for a cab. New York in the snow was a lot more picturesque in the photos. In reality it was utterly bloody freezing, far colder than he’d ever felt in London. He found a yellow taxi and ordered it to take him to his hotel, then fumbled in his pocket for his phone again and made a resolution to buy a pair of gloves. That was odd, nothing from Darny and Iss. He checked his watch; what was the time difference again? Anyway, it didn’t matter. This was news! Big news! A big job. Oh my goodness, a big job.

Austin had never meant to be a banker. He’d never really thought of doing anything much. When his parents had died in a car crash, he had been ambling gently through a degree in marine biology, after enjoying many diving holidays with his mum and dad before the extremely late and surprising new baby had come along after a silver wedding anniversary party went a bit crazy.

In the hideous blur that followed the accident, his little brother was bombarded on all sides by well-meaning aunties, social services, distant cousins, friends of his parents he’d never met. Austin had had to grow up extremely quickly, cut his surfer hair (for the best, he thought now when he saw old photos), leave university and find a job that would allow him to take over his parents’ unexpired mortgage on their little terraced house in Stoke Newington.

It hadn’t been easy convincing everyone that they were fine the way they were, with or without the fifteen shepherd’s pies that arrived every morning on their doorstep unsolicited. As long as Austin kept the front room and the hallway reasonably tidy, he’d found, and the upstairs windows open to circulate any boy smell, they got by all right. But it had been a struggle. A long road.

By the time he’d discovered he had an aptitude for his job, he was already caught up in getting Darny to school and running the house (badly) and getting to work on time, and before he knew it, he had become one of those working mothers at school who were always dashing in late with the wrong PE kit and never contributed to the Christmas fete. Except those mothers weren’t particularly friendly towards him because all the stay-at-home mothers would cover for Austin and bake him Christmas cakes and have Darny round to sleepovers to give him some time to himself, whilst simultaneously sneering at or pitying the working mothers, which made the working mothers furious.